


The Wind Is On The Rise

by littleblackduckling



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Everyone shows up eventually, Gen, M/M, no unhappy endings i promise, not smaug, romance endgame but i haven't decided who
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 19:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17668451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackduckling/pseuds/littleblackduckling
Summary: “But would it be so bad? Truly?” Primula asked. Bilbo gaped, astonished.“Would it- Would- How-? Of course it would be that bad!” he exclaimed. “Can you imagine, me, Bilbo Baggins, head of the Bagginses, running off to- to- to- that?!”Primula regarded him over the edge of her teacup.“I am a Baggins, of Bag End. I have a name and a legacy to uphold and to carry on,” he added. “And I have responsibilities now, as head of the Bagginses, even if the Old Took is formally taking those on for now.”Primula set her teacup down with a definitive clink.“You’re unhappy, Bilbo. No,” she said, when Bilbo opened his mouth to object, “you are. You are far more Tookish than you give yourself credit for. Even your mother wandered - but she left after your father had begun courting her, and she had him to call her back, and to give her home to settle in.“Do you have that here? What is the future you see for yourself? Not a one of the lads or lasses, in Hobbiton or beyond, have stirred your heart. And that’s not unheard of, there is happiness to be found in quiet and in solace, but is it there for you?”





	The Wind Is On The Rise

**Author's Note:**

> In which I play fast and loose with the canon. Hobbits are selkies, if selkies were dragons. Belladonna dies during the Fell Winter, and Bungo follows three years later. Bilbo is born three years earlier, is trans, and goes on his adventure much, much earlier than in canon. Smaug is, predictably, a creep.

To the rest of Middle Earth, Hobbits were quite simple people - small, smaller than dwarves, even, polite to a fault, a tad distrustful of outsiders, and with a healthy focus on good food, good company, and good homes. There were no great secrets about Hobbits - a halfling was exactly what you thought it was.

The Hobbits rather liked it this way. It made things much simpler, see, for the Menfolk and the Elves and most especially the Dwarves were not much fond of dragons. And after so long of shedding their scales and feathers, wrapping up their skins like a much beloved but rarely worn cloak, it simply _wasn’t_ _done_ , any longer, to put it back on. And anyway, after what the Lord of the Dark had done to their cousins, well. Best not to risk it after that.

Of all the Hobbits, the Bagginses were the most respectable, to be sure. Never an itch for adventure - while the Tooks and the Brandybucks quite frequently kipped off for a stolen adventure or two to spread their wings, and even a Proudfoot or Sackville had been known to do the same a time or two, a Baggins?

Not once. It was the cardinal rule. You were laid, you were hatched, you took in your first breath of air, and on that exhale you let your skin split and slip away and you cried the piercing wail of a newborn babe. Your parents would carefully, carefully fold your skin, and place it in a chest, and that was that.

Bilbo thought on this as he finalized the plans for his father’s funeral. There was so much to do; his death hadn’t been sudden, and yet it had still hit like a surprise. As a young hobbit lad, he'd been … quite Tookish, and dreamed much of what color his scales and his feathers might be. And always he had felt the itch along his spine, the ache in his joints, to be something, so different than the small Hobbit body that was his.

It had been almost bearable, with his parents, a true tie the skin he wore. But now …

Bilbo shook his head, and finished sealing the last of the envelopes. These ones were to be delivered to all the families of Hobbiton, formal invites to his father’s funeral, and this one was to be delivered to the Thain, detailing the matters of his father’s estate and finalizing his inheritance of the Baggins’ headship.

He glanced at the clock. It was just past elevensies now. Bilbo supposed he might as well go about his deliveries, and then stop at the market to (finally) get some groceries.

* * *

 

Bilbo did not, in fact, get any groceries. Bilbo had been raised on good manners and courtesy; he was a Baggins; he was a respectable gentlehobbit.

But it burned, these polite well wishes, the shallow condolences - to be asked “And how are you doing, dear?” and have no choice but to answer “Oh, well enough, I suppose. Thank you.” It wasn’t polite to spill on every acquaintance his grief, his unreasonable, choking anger, and it festered all the more as he had to push it down, and smile, and thank them for their concern.

And through it all he ached and _ached_ for a form he could not even remember and could never wear.

And it was so- Unfair! His mother’s death had been truly sudden, a surprise, and Bilbo knew his father had loved his mother, but he had too! And instead he’d left him, almost as soon, and Bilbo wasn’t even at his age of majority!

Lobelia had been asking after him, if he wanted to move in with her and Otho and Lotho. It wasn’t _right_ for a gentlehobbit like himself to live alone, and one so young too, at just 27, and Bilbo knew it too.

But Bilbo couldn’t stomach that - he knew Lobelia was truly just after Bilbo's inheritance. And thankfully the Thain had listened to his concerns, and, well, it wasn’t common, but there was precedent for this sort of situation, and Bilbo, being so close to his coming of age as it was, would be permitted to manage his affairs under the Old Took.

So that was settled, at least.

Nothing really felt settled though.

Bilbo swiped at his eyes and took stock of his smial. In the scant days after his father’s passing, he'd truly neglected Bag End.

No, it was longer than that. Weeks before, when he’d stopped wanting to eat, stopped wanting to get out of bed, that was when he'd began to let things slide. The dishes, he'd kept up with, but laundry had piled up, he'd done little sweeping or dusting, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he'd mopped.

There. That was something to do, then. He'd pick up the front hall and the sitting room, and do a quick sweep of the floor. He rolled his shoulders and set off in search of his broom.

He really thought he’d been getting better, though. This last week, he’d been asking to see the garden. He’d walk, with his help, and sit outside, and breathe the clean air, and tell him stories, of his mother, of their courtship, of Bilbo's own childhood, and folktales besides.

It hadn’t felt like goodbye. It had felt like an apology, for having shut him out, for having been so distant through his sickness. Through their grief.

He didn’t want his apologies. He just wanted him _here_.

But he wasn’t. It was just Bilbo now.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what i'm doing here
> 
> gonna try to update every monday, but i've only got about 1500 more words of this currently written


End file.
